Activist: China Releases Tibetan

JOE McDONALD

Published 8:00 pm, Saturday, January 19, 2002

Associated Press Writer

In a gesture aimed at improving relations with Washington, China on Sunday freed a Tibetan music scholar who had taught in the United States and was serving an 18-year prison term on spying charges, a human rights activist said.

The release of Ngawang Choephel, 34, came one month before President Bush is to visit Beijing.

Choephel, 34, was released on medical parole and put aboard a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit, accompanied by an official of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, said John Kamm, head of the San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation.

Choephel then flew from Detroit to Washington with representatives of the International Campaign for Tibet.

ICT President John Ackerly said, "He was a treasure trove of information because he was with so many other political prisoners."

Among the crowd greeting Choephel at Reagan National Airport were Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., and Lodi Gyari, special envoy to the Dali Lama. As Choephel was presented with a khata, a traditional Tibetan scarf of greeting and good luck, he said, "I'm so happy to be home."

Jeffords, who has worked for Choephel's release since it was determined he was being held prisoner, attributed the release in part to Bush's upcoming trip to China.

"Obviously they wanted to make an important gesture," Jeffords said. "But whatever, he's out."

Gyari also attributed the release to U.S. political pressure.

"We're very happy that at least one person got out," Gyari said. "But China is still holding scores of people who have fought for our rights."

Choephel is a former Fulbright scholar who taught at Middlebury College in Vermont. He disappeared in 1995 after returning to his native Tibet to videotape traditional music and dance. China announced more than a year later that he had been sentenced to 18 years in prison on spying charges.

Choephel's release appears to be aimed at improving relations with Washington in the midst of the anti-terrorism campaign, Kamm said. He noted that while China has provided diplomatic and intelligence support, it has not supplied troops or allowed use of its military bases.

"Post-Sept. 11, the Chinese have been looking for areas where they can improve relations," Kamm said by telephone from San Francisco. "Prisoner releases is one area where they can do something."

Kamm, a former businessman, meets regularly with Chinese officials to seek information on prisons and individual prisoners.

Kamm said Choephel was the top name on a list of 74 prisoners about whom he asked in July. He said he received information on 68 of those.

Choephel appeared on a "list of concern" submitted by Washington before Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Beijing last July. U.S. and Chinese officials discussed his case in October when Beijing and Washington resumed a suspended human rights dialogue.

Choephel was released under a previously unannounced 1990 Chinese regulation allowing medical parole to prisoners who have served at least one-third of their sentences and contracted illnesses in prison, Kamm said.

Choephel had served 61/2 years.

While behind bars, he was diagnosed with bronchitis, a pulmonary infection and hepatitis, Kamm said. He was hospitalized for two months.

Kamm said Choephel planned to receive medical treatment in the United States, and then return to India, where his mother and other family members live in exile.

China has used medical parole as grounds for releasing prisoners in diplomatically sensitive cases _ most recently several Chinese-born scholars with U.S. ties who were convicted last year of spying-related charges.

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But the disclosure of the new regulation raises the possibility that other ailing detainees could apply for parole, Kamm said.